Were Back!!!!

Hello everyone! So sorry it took so long to update our blog. It has been crazy. We have been back for a while now and we have had to tie up some loose ends and pull ourselves together again...just kidding. It's just that we have been very busy. We got right in to getting school going and that has been a chore itself. It has been fun but we had to find what we needed and yada yada! So that takes up the good part of the day. Jeff had been blessed with a job while we are here and while he doesn't "love" it, it provides an awesome place to witness. He is working installing office cubicles, and along the line of construction you get yucky language and you know the deal... but it is helping us get by and we thank God for it. He will be able to work there until we go back to Colorado. We are staying with my parents. When we first got home Jeff helped his dad finish the deck in his backyard and he helped the neighbor Joe with his lawn and a few things around the house. These are a couple pics of Gracie helping daddy! She was making sure she got all the tags off the wood once it was installed!



Here we have Seth building a bird feeder for the back yard with an empty milk jug. We needed some pics of the local birds for school and Mrs.Jacki has just been great to have around to help us with ideas to feed the birds and identify them. She makes it alot of fun.....and the girls when we went to the park one day last week or so. Grandma got them blue icees and that explains the blue lips! It was in Navarre and we went to the butterfly house while we were there, it was free, and we got to see a butterfly lay an egg right in front of us on a leaf! It was really cool.






Shelby got to go with Jacki and I to take Sarah's dog Sasha to the vet. Wow was she a happy camper! The vet was wonderful and told Shelby everything she was doing to the dog and why. She went in the back and brought back a baby squirrel only days old. They were so great with Shelby and she had a blast!
And last but not least, our Gracie in the window catching a fly! She is 4 today and she is a hoot. Well that's all for now, I will try to be better at blogging and please please keep us in your prayers! Love you all

It's been a while

Well a lot has happened since the last blog entry and we have not been motivated enough to post anything. This is a short post. This is to say that we will try to post what has been going on in our life as soon as we can. I just wanted to give a quick shout out to everyone to let you all know that we are still alive and in Florida.

Gone to the Mountains

Ok everyone, dont panic...we wont be emailing or posting for about 10 days or so. We are on our way to western Ukraine in about 15 min. We will be doing 2 more VBS and going to Uchgarod on the western border. Please pray for our safty. We will be back soon and well email then. Love everyone.
The Applings

Youth Camp Ukraine 2009!!!

WOW!!!!

What a great time we had at youth camp. This was the first time for Steph and me to be part of camp like this. We had 26 youth attend the camp which is not as much as we were prepared to have but God is in control so these are the ones he wanted there I suppose. We experienced some very powerful and spiritual moments with the Lord during these 5 days of camp. There were two days in particular that God's presence was really felt. Every night Steph and I prepared a skit before the main service, but there was something unusual about Wednesdays service. Tonya Duddek came up with the idea for the skit that just happened to be the life story of one of our translator/workers Vita, Stepon's wife from Carpathia. After the skit she shared her testimoney and then Jeff Duddek preached for just a few minutes. That night 16 young people up front and prayed and asked Jesus into there heart. It was a very emotional and serious moment. The kids were just crying all over the place. Then later on Artyom who repented last year at youth camp made some confessions that he had not lived the life people thought he did. He would say he was a Christian but did not live the life of one. He asked us all including the Lord to forgive him and we did and God really has changed him. The past couple of days around him he has been so different. There has been a lot of stuff that he was holding on to that he is burning in the trash pit out back. Friday we had a really bad brush fire that started from another campsite and the wind blew it right in our direction. All of our campers and workers pitched in and getting water from the sea we were able to put it out quickly. God really helped us.

Our Friend Katrina

Please pray for our friend Katrina. Yesterday she broke her ankle walking down a grassy hill in Crimea. Katrina,a missionary in Nova Odessa, took her friend Faith and the Duddek family down to see the Sanitsas in Crimea.Jeff Duddek is getting the documents he needs done so he can drive them all to Nova Odessa today. But Jeff and Jason are on their way to Kiev this morning to ride a bus down to Nova Odessa to pick her up and bring her back to Kiev to hop on a plane to go home in America for surgery.( that was a mouthful!LOL) I think Jason said she broke her leg in 3 places. I am not sure of all the details just pray that she makes it home safe and pray for youth camp. Katrina is in charge of youth camp and now she cant be there and it starts on the 10th. We love her and would like you to pray for her safety!

Bible Trip to Belarus border

Well thank the Lord for His help this week. We were in north Ukraine by the border of Belarus for 4 days passing out bibles and tracks and other liturature. I did get sick the second night at our primitive camp site with the flu and it was a very hard night for me but with God's help I made it through. Thank you for all that were praying I really felt the Lord's touch. As far as we can tell 11 people gave their hearts to the Lord during this trip and I am not sure how many excatly but we gave out several boxes of bibles. These areas that we were able to reach have never been touched with the Gospel before. Some of them may have been to an Orthodox church but most of these areas don't have a even one of those. Many people could not even read. There were a lot of older people and not so many young people. They all moved to the city. These people that we talked with have had a very hard life. Many if not all were here during WW2 and endured a lot of hardship so the lives they live now compared to that are very good. One village that Jeff D. and his translator Artyom stopped in we really got to reach the people. Most of the men were drunk. That is how everyone deals with their problems here. We got to open air preach to them and gave them bibles and some asked the Lord to save them right there. It was very amazing. There are so many details it is hard to remember them all and write them all down. Thank you all again for prayerfully supporting this trip.

They are Home!!!

Yes the guys are home! They had a wonderful trip. They got home last night (a day early) and Jeff D was on a bus to go down to Nova Odessa with his family! They decided to come home early because they were all tired and felt that they were able to accomplish a lot and wanted to get my Jeff home and Jeff D home and Jason had to get ready for Sunday and it just seemed like it was time. We haven't had an actual count but they seem to think that about 11 men were saved on this trip. They are going to set up the computer and put all pics into a folder and we are going to have a family night tonight and hear all the stories. Jeff will have more details for you later but I do know that they are already planning on returning in November to play the Jesus film and revisit the families who excepted them with open arms and received Bibles!I am so sad that I wont be here to go! I do know they did lots of open air preaching at bus stations and stores, and handed out Bibles by the handfuls! One place there were so many people crowding around the van asking for Bibles that they all had to get out, and put up a bench and began to preach!!! WOW! I know it was amazing!Jeff will make a post in a day or so but thank you everyone for your prayers. Thank you for following our blog and keep praying for the people in Ukraine. We love you all!

ALSO....please check out the "fav link" spot on my blog and visit Jeff and Tonya Duddeks blog as well as Jason and Joanna Sturtevant's blogs